My wife and I received this garage as a gift for a son on his first Christmas from my parents after already having some of the little people range for him. This garage is an update from the one I remember having a boy in the 1980s, which was certainly less colourful (it only came in a rather dreary green) but had a sturdy wooden build and perhaps looked a little more realistic than this update.

This is a chunky, fairly robust beast (trust me, my son has tried on many occasions to try to 'dismantle' it without success!). It's been thrown, sat upon and generally manhandled and is still in one piece, so points for build. Bear in mind that although he first received it when he 14 months old (it got little use at that time), he is still playing with now he is a much bigger 21 month old (and at 3 stone 3 pounds it has got to be sturdy to take his weight!).

It comes with a couple of little people and cars, handy for imaginative play as one is a mechanic, whilst the other one is inexplicably holding a mobile phone (not exactly the message you want to give the little one whilst he's driving!). Again the build of the vehicles and the people are chunky and sturdy, and as my wife points out also androgynous (handy for both girls and boys). My advice would be not to plum for this when your kids are too young for imaginative play, we've had this for about 7 months and it is still only just coming into its own as an imaginative toy (even though it says it is suitable from 12 months).

Possible drawbacks for this toy (certainly if you are buying it for a younger baby) is that the mechanism to pull the lift up and down can be a little stiff (I think this is a design flaw as it sometimes jams on me!). As anyone who has experienced a toddler in the throws of a full scale tantrum, it is definitely better if his toys are not designed to irk him when things aren't going his way! I believe the version I had as a child featured a winding handle to raise and lower the lift and this would certainly be a welcome return for a future revision. Also the toy doesn't look that realistic, the colours I'm sure have been designed to appeal to babies (as a result of many lab experiments by child psychologists no doubt), but it doesn't exactly make for a hyper realistic toy and I wonder if this might hamper its usefulness as an imaginative play prop as my boy grows up. Also you really need to invest in quite a few of the little people toys for fully immersive imaginative play (which is no small investment), otherwise the garage prop itself seems a bit redundant out of context for games involving a rudimentary level of story.

So overall this is a good toy, it won't break on you anytime soon, my son at 21 months really enjoys pushing his toys down the ramp, but a couple of design updates could make this a real winner.